F2 at 24mm sounds good to me.

Yesterday’s news was a mini-burst of panasonic cameras, the most notable of which was the Lumix DMC-LX3. I don’t normally pay attention too much to the compact universe, but one with a Leica lens and incredibly bright lenses at that will grab your attention.

In addition to the oh so nice lens (assuming you aren’t planning on going past 60mm) it has the now mandatory 3″ LCD, features a fat sensor at 10.1 megapixels which allows more room for individual pixels (leading to improved image quality, etc.). As the release puts it:

The result is a CCD that provides a generous amount of space for each pixel while offering superb sensitivity and a wide dynamic range made possible by maximizing the size of the photodiode. Panasonic also redesigned the peripheral circuits and other components to further minimize noise generation. These enhancements greatly improve imaging performance, boosting both sensitivity and saturation by around 40% compared with ordinary 10-mexapixel compact cameras.

The LX3 also shoots in a variety of aspect ratios (16:9 anyone?), sports the image stabilization, shoots the RAW stuff and yes for those so inclined also comes in silver (why?).

All in all if one were thinking about the G9 (and we do) the DMC-LX3 might give you some serious pause.

Oh, it also shoots HD video (albeit 720p)—-so, yeah it sounds real nice.